---
title: "US Treasury Secretary Reportedly Ate Hallucinogenic Mushrooms"
description: "On a recent trip to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen feasted on Chinese wild mushrooms that are known to be hallucinogenic."
date: "2023-07-18"
modified: "2023-07-18"
authors:
  - name: "Sharon Adarlo"
    job_title: "Correspondent"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/sadarlo"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-treasury-secretary-reportedly-ate-hallucinogenic-mushrooms"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "hallucinogenic"
  - "magic mushrooms"
  - "mushrooms"
  - "the digest"
---

# US Treasury Secretary Reportedly Ate Hallucinogenic Mushrooms

![On a recent trip to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen feasted on Chinese wild mushrooms that are known to be hallucinogenic.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/us-treasury-secretary-reportedly-ate-hallucinogenic-mushrooms.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

## Magical Diplomacy Tour

On a recent trip to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her dinner companions feasted on Chinese wild mushrooms that are believed to be hallucinogenic, [*CNN* reports](<https://www.cnn.com/travel/yunnan-cuisine-beijing-restaurant-mushrooms-yellen-intl-hnk/index.html>), setting off questions and a surge of interest in the fungi on both sides of the pond.

The mushrooms, known as jian shou qing, are so potent that they can send you on a bender for days, according to an expert who spoke to *CNN*. But they're known as a delicacy in China's Yunnan, a landlocked province that borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

"I have a friend who mistakenly ate them and hallucinated for three days," mushroom expert and professor at the Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan Peter Mortimer told *CNN*.

## Trip Sitter

Thankfully, there were no reports of Yellen or her dinner companions suffering hallucinogenic bouts after ordering four portions of the shrooms from the Yunnan-style restaurant chain Yi Zuo Yi Wang, which translates into "In and Out." Apparently, the mushrooms are rendered harmless when you cook them properly.

After Yellen's visit earlier this month, *CNN* reports that China’s state news agency *Xinhua* [interviewed shoppers](<https://weibo.com/1699432410/N9eYl7wN6?refer_flag=1001030103_>) buying the same shroom Yellen ate, which are knobbly looking and have a reddish color, with one person saying eating them sent her on a tailspin: "You thought you were walking straight but you just fell sideways."

Back in America, hallucinogenic mushrooms — by far the most common being psilocybin— remain illegal at the federal level but are slowly [gaining acceptance ](<https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psilocybin-treatment-for-major-depression-effective-for-up-to-a-year-for-most-patients-study-shows>) for recreation and the treatment of depression and other mood disorders. For example, [Oregon allowed adult use of psilocybin](<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/health/psychedelic-drugs-mushrooms-oregon.html>), also known as magic mushrooms, earlier this year.

## Mushroom Diplomacy

The occasion for Yellen's trip was to smooth over the often turbulent US-China relations, according to *CNN*. Perhaps her willingness to eat at a Yunnan-style restaurant went a long way towards making a favorable impression, since her dinner was avidly followed on the Chinese micro-blogging website Weibo.

The restaurant confirmed the visit and said in a translation provided by *CNN*: "Our staff said she loved mushrooms very much. She ordered four portions of jian shou qing (a Yunnan wild mushroom species). It was an extremely magical day."

The visit prompted a surge of orders for the same dish, *CNN* reports — and the video segment from *Xinhua,* thankfully, provided guidance on how to ingest them without getting high as heck.

**More on mushrooms:** [*After Blowing Up Crypto Industry, Exec Turns to Magic Mushrooms*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/crypto-exec-magic-mushrooms>)